The latest slew removals on the Max streaming service is a bad sign for the app and the future of animation.
Over the last few years, audiences have quickly realized the unreliability of streaming services like Netflix in maintaining their library of movies and shows. One of the latest examples was Voltron: Legendary Defender leaving the pioneering streaming app.
However, Warner Bros. Discovery's Max - home of HBO - is one service that's been bleeding the most. The ongoing purge of children's cartoons has only worsened, with the streaming app seemingly going through a troubling new rebranding.
Bad Sign for Future of Kids & Family Brand on Max
Max has removed multiple beloved animated shows in the last several months, like Regular Show, Steven Universe, The Amazing World of Gumball, and more. But what makes animation fans even more nervous is the newest rebranding on Max.
On Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming service, there's a section called "Brand Spotlight," which emphasizes the streaming services' biggest and most defining brands, such as HBO, DC, Harry Potter, and Kids & Family. Unfortunately, Kids & Family has been removed as a Brand Spotlight and downgraded into the genre section.
What makes this such a shock is that Max initially went out of its way to advertise itself as the place for cartoons with its marketing campaign, "We've got the cartoons," as its slogan. It's only become ironic over the years as Max continues its removal of shows such as DC darlings Static Shock and Teen Titians.
While Kids & Family was removed from the Brand Spotlight section, Cartoon Network thankfully remained, but looking inside shows just how many cartoons Warner Bros. Discovery has stripped from the streaming app.
The only mainstay cartoons left from the now-defunct network are Adventure Time, Craig of the Creek, and Season 8 of Teen Titans Go! with the only classic cartoons left being the original Powerpuff Girls.
It should be noted that this change is only regional, restricted to the United States, with other countries like Spain still showing Kids & Family as part of Max's Brand Spotlight. Additionally, many shows that have been removed, like Regular Show and Steven Universe, are also fully available in those regions.
What appears to be happening with all these cartoon show removals isn't some deliberate scheme from Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav to destroy animation, but likely born out of greed alongside potentially terribly timed license deals or contracts going into effect or expiring.
Licensing, Contracts and Streaming Apps
Considering how many cartoons have been purged from Warner Bros. Discovery's streaming app, it's no wonder that it decided to remove Kids & Family from its Brand Spotlight in the United States, seeing how embarrassingly barren its become over the last year alone.
These removals likely aren't the same as Infinity Train, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, and Close Enough, which were done as tax write-offs or avoiding paying residuals, but more so due to existing licensing agreements with other networks or streaming apps. Hence why many of these same shows are still available in other regions.
However, in the United States, shows like Steve Universe, Regular Show, The Amazing World of Gumball, and more are currently only available for streaming on Hulu, owned by Disney. It's even more likely that Zaslav saw more profit in selling the streaming license to their competitor than streaming it themselves on Max.
Max is at least maintaining a hold on Adventure Time, if only due to its ongoing spin-off shows like Fionna and Cake, which recently revealed the return of a fan favorite character.
Fionna and Cake Season 2 is expected to be released on Max in late 2025 or early 2026.
